Friday, February 28, 2014

A judge in Haiti says a U.S. citizen and her Haitian mother face child-trafficking charges after they were found carrying thousands of dollars in cash.

Judge Borgella Shoute said Tuesday that Farah Marlin and Yrose Pressoir were stopped last week by police with Haiti's child protection unit. He says the mother and daughter had just handed over two children to someone at the high-end hotel Karibe in the capital.

Shoute declines to name the individual who received the children.

Defense lawyer Michel Ange Asse says the two women are innocent. He says they collected the money to organize an adoption for an American couple.

The judge says she is ordering Marlin and Pressoir held in prison while their case is in the hands of an investigative judge.